Connecting The Dots
by acertainzest
Summary: Two strangers meet in a bar and spend a single night together, never to meet again. Can it really be that simple? Of course not.
1. Chapter 1

The first time happens after their second case together, the one with the murdered nanny.

After going back to the precinct to file her preliminary report, Beckett bids the boys goodnight and escapes. She needs a drink after staring down that knife. She ends up at a bar about fifteen minutes' walk away: far enough to not be a cop bar, and it's just a hair more upscale than most cops prefer anyway.

She doesn't go there particularly often, but the bartender is good. He remembers what she drinks and has her glass filled and ready by the time she gets from the door to the bar. Vodka, with a twist of lime.

She's wearing the fake wedding ring that she keeps at the bottom of her purse. It usually works to deter most, though not all, of the desperate men prowling for booty calls at this not-very-late hour.

She's halfway through her drink when he enters. Goddamn it. Castle. He must have followed her.

She is so not in the mood for him right now, and it's not fair. She's off the clock; she shouldn't have to deal with him. She decides to shut him down. To hell with the mayor. She doesn't have to be polite after hours.

"Mind if I join you?" he asks, and she sees the bartender watching, alert for signs of trouble. Of course she can handle herself, but it's nice to know the guy has her back.

"Suit yourself," she grumbles.

And then Castle surprises her.

"Rick," he says, holding out his hand. She blinks, wondering what the hell this is about.

"Kate," she finds herself replying, shaking his hand. It seems absurd, but he smiles, a bland nice-to-meet-you smile.

"You from around here? I'm just in for the sales conference over at the Hyatt," he says with an easy confidence. He nods at the bartender, giving the universal sign for _I'll have what she's having._ "Flight back home first thing in the morning," he adds. "Denver."

"Denver?" Somewhat to her surprise, she's playing along. "What a coincidence. That's where my husband ran off to when I filed for divorce." _I'm more of a one and done type_ , she remembers telling him earlier. But that was Beckett, and now, apparently, she's just Kate: a whole different woman.

"You don't say," grins Castle - no, _Rick_. "Guess his loss is my gain."

"Mm." She sips her drink and watches him taste his. What is this game they're playing? She isn't sure, but there's a warm tingle gathering in the pit of her stomach, and it's not just from the alcohol.

"So," he goes on, lifting his eyebrows in appreciation of the vodka, "have you lived in the city your whole life?" She tenses at the question, wondering if this is just another weird ploy to find out more about her for his damn book - but he isn't finished. "Been here a few times for business," he adds, "but I've never managed to see much of it."

"I grew up here, yes," she gives him a little grudgingly. "Went away for college, came back." She sips her drink, watches him watching her mouth. "So," she adds slowly, "no time for sightseeing in the travel schedule?"

"Nope," he says regretfully. "I've mostly just seen the insides of convention centers and hotel rooms."

Ah. That's her cue, and she doesn't have to take it. She shot him down once before, just after their first case last week; she could do it again.

But something about this little game he has initiated is intriguing her. And, let's face it, she isn't nearly as immune to him as she's been pretending.

"Seen some nice hotel rooms, though, I hope," she murmurs, crossing her legs very deliberately. She keeps her eyes on his face and sees him react to the move, his eyes flashing briefly, but he stays cool.

"Oh, well, you know," he shrugs. "Seen one, seen 'em all. This Hyatt does have pretty comfortable beds, though." He says it without the leer he might normally use; he's in character, and Rick-the-salesman-from-Denver doesn't leer, apparently, not even for comic effect. He does put a little extra emphasis on the words, holding his gaze on her so she can't mistake his meaning.

The bartender has refilled her glass and she takes another sip, then another, watching Castle. He keeps his bland smile in place.

At last she downs the final dregs of her second vodka and says, "Comfortable beds, uh?"

It's the opening he's been waiting for, and he takes it without hesitation. "Come and see for yourself, if you'd like." Now he grins again, slow and sexy. She hasn't appreciated that grin at the precinct the past few days, but here, now, it feels different. She's not Detective Beckett here, nor, it seems, is he Writer Castle. They're just Kate and Rick. They could be anyone.

"The Hyatt, you said?" she husks, and he nods, his eyes darkening.

"It's right around the corner."

It is. And somehow, after a brief walk and a brief stop he makes at the front desk, and then an even briefer elevator ride, they're in a hotel room. Beckett isn't even quite sure how that happened. Rick-from-Denver chatted about skiing almost the whole time. Kate-the-businesswoman of unspecified type answers that she used to love skiing, but just never seems to find the time for it these days.

But now they're in the room, the door is closed, and she's dropping her coat and purse on a chair, thinking, _what next_?

"So…" He comes over, crowding into her personal space, but not actually touching her. The heat radiating off his body makes her muscles tense up, not unpleasantly. And then he _is_ touching her; lifts her hand, rubs his finger over her ring. She shivers a little. "Husband out of the picture, huh?" he says, low, and she isn't sure whether he's confirming her story or still playing the game.

"Yeah," she answers, her voice not nearly as steady as it could be. "And you, heading back to Denver in the morning."

"Right," he agrees. He drops her hand and moves around behind her, the solid wall of his body brushing her back. His lips skim along her neck. His hands are on her hips, but lightly, and she understands that this is her out; this is the moment when she can take a single step forward and end this. They could laugh about it as a silly game they played on the spur of the moment, and nothing would change.

She doesn't step forward.

She tilts her head to the side, just a little, exposing more of her neck; she presses her ass back against him. His breath puffs out hot across her skin and his fingers tighten on her hips, gripping her with authority now. His mouth opens on her neck and she gasps at the touch of his tongue, the wet slide of his lips down toward the juncture of her shoulder.

But her turtleneck gets in the way and he grunts in frustration, his hands moving up to snag the bottom hem of the shirt. He doesn't pause. The shirt is up and over her head and on the floor. His mouth is on her neck again, now free to roam, and his hands are doing the same, boldly sliding across her abdomen to cup her breasts, rubbing his fingers over her nipples through her bra. She's panting, gripping his arms, her hips unable to hold still, rolling back against him. He eases the bra straps off her shoulders and down, the cups peeling away, and his big hands close around her bare flesh and she gasps again, arching her back.

In the week since Castle started shadowing her, she has found so much frustration in his seemingly ceaseless chatter, the constant movement of his mouth. Now, in this hotel room, his mouth is having a very different effect on her.

She's on her back on the bed, naked, and his head is between her thighs, his tongue moving against her. Electric sparks of pleasure go rippling across her whole body with every movement. She throws her head back on the pillow and groans desperately, her hips twisting. He pulls her legs over his shoulders - somehow his shirt is gone too and his skin is hot against the backs of her thighs - and his hands are hard on her hips, holding her down while his mouth ravages her. She bursts apart in a sudden, inevitable rush, unable to stop the desperate noises escaping her throat.

Rick-from-Denver is just how she might have imagined Castle would be in bed - not that she'll admit to having imagined it - assertive, confident, unhesitating. And talented. Barely has she gotten her senses back than she realizes he's still at it, now pressing two fingers up inside her, twisting them until he finds the spot that makes her shudder and writhe on the mattress. His tongue is gentler now, building her back up. She moans and gasps for breath, can't at all find the words to tell him to stop, it's almost too much, give her a minute.

But he brings her right up to the edge, she can feel a second climax building, and she's ready, so ready for its undertow to pull her down, when he stops. She blinks dazedly at the loss of sensation as his mouth lifts off her and his fingers slide out of her. He comes slinking up her body like a predator, some kind of big deadly cat, and she can only watch, and reach for him with greedy arms. He's already naked and has a condom on and he drives into her without hesitation.

She cries out, her eyes slamming shut at the onslaught of sensation. Her arms wrap around his shoulders and some distant part of her brain is amazed by the power, the sculpted muscle of his body. Who knew he was so nicely toned under the expensive clothes, the carefree attitude?

She hears again the high-pitched sounds of pleasure rolling past her lips as he thrusts into her with long, slow strokes, his face pressed into the curve of her neck. She should maybe be ashamed of making those noises, of being here, of doing this, but she isn't. She needed this. Needed the release, needed the knowledge of what her infuriating new shadow feels like thick and hard inside her, the melting heat of his skin on hers, the weight of his broad body pressing her down. She lifts her knees higher around his hips and urges him on wordlessly.

He slides his hands down underneath her, long strong fingers wrapping around her thighs, and he pulls them up even higher still, angling her until he's hitting her just right with every stroke of his hips. She moans again and gives over to it. She comes hard, her throat dry, hearing him grunt urgently in her ear as the spasms of her body pull him over the edge also.

He rolls aside quickly and they lie still for a few moments, panting, sweaty. After a short span of time, the silence starts to feel uncomfortable. Beckett gathers her wits - not without a struggle - and sits up.

"Kate?" he asks, his tone carefully neutral. The use of her first name startles her briefly, until she remembers the game - the pretense under which they came here, did this. Gratefully, she pulls the act around her like armor.

"I gotta go." She stands up - wincing a little bit, wobbling a little bit on unsteady legs - and finds her clothing. She doesn't look at him until she's fully dressed, with her purse over her shoulder and her coat in hand. Then she glances over and finds him still lying on the bed, naked, watching her without expression.

"Have a nice flight," she mutters, and leaves.

It's not until she's in the elevator again, headed down, that it occurs to her that they never kissed. His mouth was all over her body, but never on her lips. She clenches her thighs together, groaning deep in her throat, fighting the urge to push the button again and ride back up to him. Oh shit. She can't, she has to put this behind her, but oh God, how the hell did she fuck Richard Castle without ever kissing him?

She goes home and gets into a hot shower, stands under the spray shaking her head and thinking, shit, how did this happen? What has she done? Exactly what she swore she wouldn't do, that's what. Gave in to the famous Castle charm. Gave him just what he wanted, and now he'll think that she's ... whatever he thinks of all those other women who appear with him in the gossip pages. Never the same woman twice, if Page Six is to be believed.

Scowling with self-disgust, she dries off and puts on pajamas, eats something out of a takeout container from the fridge that she doesn't see or taste, and falls into bed. She refuses to let herself think about it any more.

The next day she's at work as usual, wearing another turtleneck. Her thighs are a little sore, her hips a little bruised, and she's entirely on edge from wondering what happens next. Will Castle even bother to show up, or has he gotten what he wanted and decamped back to his flashy life? Which is what she has been wanting him to do from the beginning. Isn't it?

He does show up. He behaves entirely the same as always - as if nothing had happened between them. He high-fives the boys in greeting and irritates her with his obnoxious comments; he's boyishly, ghoulishly excited when they get a call for a new murder.

Okay, she thinks. She can do this. It was a one-time thing that they'll never talk about, if that's how he wants to play it.

* * *

The second time happens a few days later, after they solve the next case.

They run down their suspect in a hotel room, and after they've made the arrest, as her team is striding out through the lobby with the suspect in handcuffs surrounded by uniforms, Castle says, "Nice bar in this place. Bet they serve Stoli."

Ryan and Esposito stare at him, bemused. Beckett quickly steps in with snark, which is already firmly established as her role in this weird little team.

"If you want to go knock one back while we get on with the real work, Castle, feel free."

The boys snigger and they all move on, the incongruity of Castle's comment forgotten. She carefully doesn't look at him.

But later that evening, after the paperwork is finished, she's at that hotel's bar, and so is Castle. The bar does indeed serve Stoli. And the game begins again.

This time Rick-the-salesman is from Chicago, and this time Kate-the-businesswoman is a traveler too, because why the hell not? Beckett has mentally fleshed out her character some more. Now she's a security consultant from L.A., here for a week of client meetings.

And this time she makes him work for it a little harder. Kate-the-security-consultant is no pushover. She's unmarried, and gorgeous - yes, she knows exactly how hot she is - and she doesn't have to take any crap from any man. But Rick flirts skillfully; he's too suave for words; and of course she allows herself to be won over. Soon enough they're leaving the bar together. He reserved a room in advance this time, and she carefully doesn't think about what that means.

In the elevator, she leans against the wall, studying him. He raises his eyebrows and is perhaps about to say something, when she pounces.

She takes the kiss that she didn't get last time - the kiss that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about - and it's everything she dreamed of and more. It's delicious. She's practically climbing his body, her fingers clawing in his hair, her tongue invading his mouth. He grunts briefly in surprise and then his hands come up, boldly cupping her ass with both wide palms, yanking her against him. His tongue meets hers in a messy, wet clash. Her body is on fire, crackling with need.

The elevator doors open with a ding and they stumble out, hands groping everywhere. Somehow they make it down the hall to the room and inside.

She's feeling a lot more aggressive than she was last time, fierce with the need to regain control of whatever the hell this is. She slams him back against the door and drops to her knees before he has a chance to move. He gasps loudly when she tugs him free of his jeans and boxers, engulfing his tip in her mouth without preamble. His head slams back against the door, fingers curling convulsively around air as she runs her tongue down his length and back up again, her hand stroking.

She works the button of her own pants with her other hand while she's sucking him; her heels are kicked off and her fingers are inside her underwear, teasing herself with a light touch. His whole body is vibrating against the door with the strain of trying to control himself.

She brings him right up to the edge, like he did with her the last time, and then she pulls off. Rising to her feet, she grabs him by the front of his shirt, spins him around, and shoves him onto the bed. She climbs on top of him before he has a moment to catch his breath. She's already got the condom in her hand, kicked off her pants and underwear, and in another instant she's sinking down on him.

He groans as she takes him in, and it's ridiculous - they both still have their shirts on - his hands are moving quickly to remedy that, opening her buttons in a flash while she's rotating her hips and sliding down onto him. She leans over him and his long arms reach behind her, flicking open the clasp of her bra, pulling it off. He tugs her down until he can get his mouth around one breast, his teeth scraping, tongue circling, and she groans deeply.

She rides him harder, pressing herself forward over him, her hands digging into the mattress on either side of his head. His hands wander across her back, down to squeeze her ass again, and he pulls her in tighter so that she's rubbing against his pelvis just right with every movement. She gasps and moans, shuddering as her orgasm rolls over her. She lets herself collapse onto his broad chest as he pushes his hips up into her and groans out his own release.

Her head spinning, she rolls off and sprawls on the bed, panting. Her whole body is buzzing deliciously. She lies still, watching him slowly gather his wits, sit up, lean over to dispose of the condom. His shirt is still on, half-unbuttoned; his pants are bunched around his knees, his socks still on too. He looks down at himself for a moment, blinking fuzzily.

Then he kicks the pants and boxers off, brings his fingers to the next button of his shirt, and opens it. He looks over at her as he moves down to the next.

"Go again?" he asks, his tone silky, his mouth curving in that annoyingly sexy smirk of his. He finishes the buttons and shucks off the shirt.

She sits up next to him, runs her hands greedily over his well-muscled chest. "Hell yeah."

He growls his approval, pushes her back down onto the bed, and begins to work his tongue down the length of her body.

By the time they finish round two, it's getting late and Beckett is starting to feel hungry. She dresses quickly, forcing her overused muscles to obey even as they scream in protest.

"Nice meeting you," she says once she's put back together. He grins, pulling his boxers back on.

"Give my regards to Hollywood," he replies, and she tosses her head and leaves.

She makes it home and collapses on the couch, her legs like jelly. The ache between her thighs is almost strong enough to slip over the line from pleasant to uncomfortable. She forces herself to get up and eat something before sinking into a long hot bath.

Just like last time, the doubts and worries begin to creep back in as the intoxicating high of the sex wears off. She wonders again what to make of this. So much for the idea of it being a one-time thing … but then what is it? Why did Castle start this game; how could he have known it would work? How could he have known that pretending to be strangers was the only way she could be comfortable letting him get close? Physically close, that is, she tells herself hastily, biting her lip. That's all it is. It's just sex. That's all Castle wants with her, and it's all she wants with him.

She's lying to herself, but she can't let herself see it. She refuses to think any deeper. She's determined to cling to the belief that it was just meaningless sex - both times. And if it happens again, the same.

The next day, again, Castle is his usual self and so is she. They don't talk about it. She doesn't think about it. She's grateful for paperwork that gives her an excuse to spend most of the day in her chair.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! This story will be either 3 or 4 chapters depending on how I decide to break it up. Next chapter will be posted tomorrow._


	2. Chapter 2

The third time happens about a week later, after they've solved another case. Beckett overhears Castle on the phone with his mother, talking about an art-show opening that he's planning to go to as a favor for a friend. Based on the clues that she gathers from his conversation, and a bit of simple detective work, she identifies the gallery location and the time of the event.

She has enough time after work to go home, change into a breezy little cocktail dress, and get out to the gallery, arriving just as the party is getting underway.

She circulates for a while, nibbling hors d'oeuvres and sipping a glass of wine, pretending to admire the art. After ten or fifteen minutes she spots him; she doesn't look his way, doesn't approach him, but she can sense when he notices her. And she imagines she can feel the heat of his gaze from across the room.

Moving casually, Castle works his way over to her and spends a moment examining the painting she's standing in front of.

"Nice use of color," he offers after a moment, and she smirks a little, but nods.

"Yes. I think this one is my favorite."

"Oh. Did you see the one over there, the forest?" he asks smoothly, gesturing. She nods again, cocking her head at the painting before her.

"That one's impressive also, but there's just something about this one that speaks to me."

"I like a woman who knows what she likes," he murmurs with a quirk of his lips. He holds out his hand. "I'm Rick."

"Kate," she gives back, taking his hand, letting him hold her smaller one clasped in his broad palm for just a heartbeat longer than propriety allows.

It turns out that this art gallery, which is housed in a former warehouse space (so very hipster), has its restroom all the way in the back, at the end of a long concrete hallway: all very modern-chic and, incidentally, soundproof. And just a few minutes of desultory, pretentious art-gallery flirting later, against her better judgement, knowing what a terrible idea it is, Beckett is doing it anyway: following Castle down that hallway, into that small bathroom, letting him lock the door behind them, letting him fuck her from behind against the concrete wall.

Her hands are flat on the wall, slippery with sweat, and the skirt of her cocktail dress is bunched around her waist, her thong tugged aside by his sure fingers. She heard the crinkle and rip of the condom wrapper a moment ago, and now he's inside her, hot and hard, short sharp thrusts. The heat of his body suffuses her, his hot breath gusting across the back of her neck. It feels so good, so damn good that her eyes squeeze shut and she grits out a curse through clenched teeth.

She slips a hand down to touch herself, but he swats it away and replaces it with his own. His thick fingers slide across her stomach and past the thong, seeking, finding, drawing a long strangled moan from her when he presses and circles in just the right spot.

His other hand moves up to cover hers where it's pressed against the wall. His hips are still pushing steadily into her, and he slides their joined hands higher, stretching her, making her back arch, and she cries out and then bites her lip to stifle it. He thrusts harder, faster, his fingers rubbing her, and she presses her lips together tightly to hold back a scream when she comes, feeling him go still and then jerk convulsively behind her.

She stays there leaning against the wall, panting, while he tosses the condom in the trash and washes his hands. Then, without a word, he cracks the door open, peeks out, and quickly leaves.

She locks the door again and sits on the toilet until her breathing steadies and her legs stop trembling. Then she gets up, adjusts the thong, smooths down her dress, splashes some cold water on her face, pats her hair. The woman in the mirror looks a little flushed, a little rumpled, but not _too_ much like she just got fucked in a concrete-slab-walled bathroom. It'll have to do.

She doesn't think about the fact that this was the first time she initiated the game, rather than letting him do it. She makes her way back to the gallery, retrieves her coat from the coat-check, and flees.

* * *

And so it becomes a pattern. After almost every case, they put aside Beckett and Castle, and they become Kate and Rick, two carefree single adults just looking for a quick hookup. They meet, pretend to be strangers, flirt, and fuck.

It's a different hotel bar each time, or sometimes other venues - art shows, book signings, coffee shops - but the hotel bars work best, because the bedrooms are conveniently right there. Once in a while they end up at some awful, sleazy pay-by-the-hour motel, which is a different kind of thrill: the dirty feeling of knowing that there can be no possible way to misinterpret or misrepresent what they're about to do.

Some unspoken rules are mutually understood from the beginning and always followed. They never use surnames; they never break character; they never ask particularly personal questions during the flirting phase; they never go to either of their homes. They never fall asleep together. They never leave together.

And they never, ever, ever talk about it. Not before, not during, and not after. At the precinct, at crime scenes, wherever and whenever they're investigating a murder, they are Detective Beckett and author Castle, never the slightest hint of anything else.

It's weird, perhaps, but it's working for Beckett. She can't admit it even to herself; she doesn't let herself think about it, at all. As long as she doesn't think, she can pretend that it's just a series of unrelated vignettes, not a cohesive narrative with direction and purpose. And that's how she needs it to be, because she can't bear to let emotions get involved. Not when she knows (she thinks) exactly what kind of man Castle is. Not when she is the kind of woman (she thinks) she is.

So she has to ignore the fact that, while Castle is getting to know her better and better at work, helping her solve cases, slowly becoming a part of the team, at the same time he's learning her body as well. They're learning each other's bodies, in fact. It's the only thing that occasionally threatens to jolt her out of the pretense: the way he knows exactly where to bite her neck to make her knees give out; the way he knows that her right nipple is more sensitive than her left, and that she likes them both to be handled roughly; the way he has learned exactly how rough she likes it, and how to hold her on that line between pleasure and pain. And on her side, she knows how firmly he prefers to be stroked; how he likes it when she tugs on his hair while he's going down on her; how giving him shallow kisses and refusing to deepen them will frustrate him into losing control.

But she can still pretend. She can tell herself it's not unrealistic that two strangers who just met in a bar know how to pleasure each other so perfectly. She can tell herself that it doesn't mean anything when, once in a while, at the precinct, she catches a whiff of Castle's aftershave and her body reacts automatically in Pavlovian fashion: her nipples tightening, her thighs clenching.

At work, in her role as Detective Beckett, she is similarly lying to herself. She's pretending that Castle is still nothing more than an annoying tagalong who occasionally happens, by pure luck, to have an idea that breaks a case open. She's telling herself that her job is no more enjoyable than ever. She's still clinging to her perception of herself as the type of cop who works best without a partner.

Then one day they're standing in a hospital corridor, Beckett trembling with weariness and the weight of guilt over having gotten her FBI ex-boyfriend nearly killed, and Castle ruins everything. He brings up her mother's case. He reveals that he has been digging into it - after she explicitly told him not to! - and he tries to put a file folder in her hand, to tell her what he's found, but she can't. She can't hear this. The whole thing is crashing down around her.

"This is the end," she tells him, her voice as cold as it has ever been. "We are done." And she walks away.

* * *

She spends a miserable summer. Work is busy, as it always is when the heat and humidity make people cranky; but every case closed is a case closed without Castle, and Beckett is the crankiest of them all. Ryan and Esposito don't ask. Montgomery doesn't ask, though she sees him watching her with pursed lips, often while talking on the phone.

For the first week or two, Castle calls repeatedly, leaves multiple messages, on both her cell phone and her work phone. She deletes them all without listening to them. Eventually he stops calling.

Her father invites her up to the cabin for a week, but she declines. She does try; she goes up there for a couple of days, and has to bite her tongue the whole time to keep from telling her dad all kinds of things that she doesn't need him to know. He gives her calculating looks that she can't bear, so on the third morning she hugs him, slings her duffel bag onto her back, and rides her motorcycle back to the city.

She throws herself into the job and tries to pretend she's fine.

She stands in a cool shower at the end of almost every day, washing off the sweat and grit, and sometimes she touches herself and pretends she isn't thinking about Castle's fingers, and she gags on anger and despair even as orgasm overtakes her.

September arrives, and Montgomery tells her blandly that Castle will be coming to the precinct to shoot some photos for an upcoming magazine article about his book. The very thought leaves a sour taste in her mouth: his book based on her, the idea of which once made her heart leap with astonished excitement. Not any more.

Montgomery also tells her that she'll be expected to make herself available to the reporter writing the story. He doesn't need to say that everything she says should be positive and reflect well on the NYPD; it's fully well implied and understood. She sighs and acquiesces.

Seeing Castle again is every bit as painful as she might have guessed - and more so, when he's wearing that awful pinstriped suit and has two models in ridiculously skimpy 'slutty cop' outfits hanging all over him. Beckett very carefully wipes the scowl from her face and forces herself to be both polite and politic in her interview with the reporter.

And then, as she should have expected, there's a case, and there's Castle tagging along again, and somehow they're falling back into the groove of investigating together. It infuriates her how easy and comfortable it feels.

The case spins off the rails, and the next thing she knows, Castle is in a Russian poker bar, in way over his head. She sighs explosively as she realizes what she's going to have to do to get him out of there intact.

"What're you gonna do, lip-gloss 'em to death?" Esposito asks skeptically as she climbs out of the van.

"Something like that," she snaps, and channels all of her fury and frustration at Castle into the sway of her hips and the smoldering of her heavily lined eyes to charm her way past the bouncers.

She gets there just in time. "You're a cop!" the killer is growling at Castle, his gun held steady, and she steps in quickly, pulling on her Russian accent with ease.

"Him, a cop? Don't make me laugh, he's barely even a man," she raps out sharply, strutting into the room. She swallows down her satisfaction at the flash of pure astonishment in Castle's face when he sees her, _hears_ her.

She takes down the suspect in short order, firmly ignores Castle staring at her ass, and goes back to the van to put her clothes back on before any cops other than Ryan and Espo can get an eyeful.

Back at the precinct, Castle starts mouthing off about her mother's case again. She can't believe it. She turns to ice and tells him to leave. Thankfully, he does. She sinks back into the welcome distraction of paperwork.

But an hour or so later he's back, with, entirely unexpectedly, an apology. She sits stunned as he gives his little speech, which, from the sound of it, he probably composed and rehearsed on his way over. Still, it's heartfelt; she can see that he really means it, every word.

Finished, he turns and walks away again.

Of course, she breaks. She calls out to him: "See you tomorrow."

She doesn't look at him as he leaves, but she can imagine the tiny smile lighting up his eyes. Those deep blue eyes that so enticingly cloud over when she takes him in hand and - Oh God. Oh shit. She knows what she's going to do, self-restraint and self-respect be damned.

She takes a few deep, careful breaths, and tries to calculate the probability that Ryan and/or Espo told Castle what she said in the van. On balance, given how all three men reacted to her undercover outfit, she thinks the odds are good.

She finishes up the paperwork, changes back into her slutty-Russian-girl costume, and takes the train to Coney Island.

She's sitting in the Russian cafe with a cup of borscht, debating how long to wait, when Castle comes in. He spots her immediately, but allows the waitress to seat him a few tables away. Then he makes a show of noticing Beckett, looking surprised, leaning over toward her.

"Excuse me, have we met?" he asks with his boyishly charming smile. "You look very familiar."

"No, I do not think so," she replies in her Russian accent. "I don't know many American men."

"Really? That's too bad," he says, still smiling. "How long have you been here, in America?"

"Almost a year," she answers, ducking her head faux-bashfully as he gets up and moves to take the seat across from her. "I come for university, but is hard to meet people." In Russian, she adds, "People who are worth meeting," and watches his face.

His eyes are smoldering, and she sees that the accent and her shy new-girl-in-town persona are seriously turning him on.

"I'm sure it is ... hard," he agrees, still wearing his friendly smile. She gives back a small twist of her lips.

"That is, how you say, second meaning?" she murmurs, lowering her lashes. She lifts her spoon and takes another mouthful of borscht.

"Double meaning, yes," he agrees, watching her eat. "Your English is excellent."

"Thank you. I practice a lot." She takes another spoonful. "You are not hungry? The vareniki, they are very good."

"No, I'm not here to eat," he answers, still watching her mouth. "I was hoping for some vodka, actually, but it looks like this place doesn't serve alcohol."

"No, they do not," she agrees. "There is liquor store on corner." She gives him another coquettish look and adds, "Right next to hotel."

"Oh. I see," he says, his voice deepening, husky now, and she can feel it vibrating in the pit of her stomach.

In moments she has finished her soup, put down some cash, and followed him out the door. He puts his arm around her, too familiarly, like a stereotypical boorish American man, and she plays the part of the easily impressed foreign girl, giggling lightly and allowing her body to tilt toward his as they walk toward the liquor store and then past it, to the cheap sleazy flophouse she called a hotel.

Within minutes they're in a room, and she knows that the cleanliness of the place doesn't bear examining too closely, but that won't be a problem. Not with the way Castle has her pinned against the door, groping her body urgently as he ravishes her mouth.

She digs her fingers into his hair, hard, not caring if her nails scratch his scalp. She welcomes his tongue into her mouth, his soft lips hot and insistent on hers. She already feels weak with the pleasure of it, after so long, after all these weeks of being furious at him, of telling herself she was over it, of pretending she didn't miss him. She did miss him: between her legs, in her arms, in her mouth. In the precinct.

She pushes that thought aside and lifts one knee, wrapping her leg around his waist, grinding herself into him. They both groan desperately.

He practically rips her clothes off, and his own, and in what seems like the blink of an eye he's pressing her down on the bed, shoving into her. It's too hard, too fast, and she loves it. She cries out and writhes under him, sinking her fingernails into his ass.

She remembers her disguise suddenly in the space between one hard thrust and the next, and she begins to moan in Russian, gasping and muttering guttural words of pleasure.

"Oh God," he groans against her neck, "that's so hot," and he slows down, bracing himself over her on one elbow, slipping his other hand between their bodies to touch her just the way he knows she likes it. She slams her head back on the pillow and lets out a string of Russian curses as she comes, hard, nothing but white light bursting behind her eyelids.

When she can see again she discovers that he's still inside her, thrusting slowly, watching her. His fingers are still between her legs, gently stroking. He keeps that focused, intent gaze on her as he slowly winds her back up, until she's moaning and desperate again.

Then he removes his fingers, wraps a hard hand around her hip, and flips them. She's on top now, gasping and cursing in Russian as she grinds down frantically on him until they both go hurtling over the edge.

Afterward, they collapse in a sweaty heap together, but only for a moment, because it's uncomfortable. The bed is lumpy and too narrow for two of them, unless they're going to cuddle, which they aren't. They don't cuddle. It's not part of the game.

She gets up, takes a look at the tiny filthy bathroom attached to the room, and decides she can wait till she gets home.

She pulls her clothes back on, looks down at him, and says "До свидания." And she walks out, leaving him lying naked on the bed.

* * *

And so they get back to it. They're investigating cases again, and they're playing the strangers game again. The sex has a new edge after the emotional wasteland of the summer, which, like everything else, Beckett refuses to think about.

It gets harder to find places to go, especially after Castle's book comes out. Suddenly it seems like everyone knows them, recognizes them. They can't pretend to be strangers in any random mid-Manhattan bar any more. They start going farther afield, trying sleazier places - including a couple of biker bars, where Castle's eyes are wide with awe and Beckett just knows, somehow, that he'll find a way to work a menacing leather-clad motorcyclist into one of his books - and hotels farther out from their usual areas.

Beckett freaks out a little when she hears that _Heat Wave_ includes a sex scene, but she's relieved when she reads it and finds that it bears no relation to ... anything they've done together. By the time she gets to the end of the book, though, she's not so sure that relief was the right response. It's too clear that Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook are kidding themselves when they try to act like it was just a one-time thing, just sex, nothing serious. Her chest clenches uncomfortably when she finishes the book and sets it aside.

She doesn't know what to think about it, so she doesn't. She carefully puts it out of her mind.

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you for all the nice comments about this story so far! I hope you continue to enjoy it. The final chapter will be posted tomorrow._


	3. Chapter 3

Just as it's getting harder to find places they can go and be anonymous, it's also getting harder to keep up the pretense in general.

It gets harder the more Beckett gets to know Castle, the more she sees of the real person behind the obnoxious exterior. She has known all along, at the back of her mind, that he's learning her personality just as he's been learning her body, soaking up every detail like a sponge; but she slowly realizes that she's learning him too.

It gets harder when she learns that Castle has turned down an offer to write James Bond, signing a contract instead for three more Nikki Heat novels. The influence that Bond had on Derrick Storm is impossible to miss, so she can only imagine how excited Castle must have felt about getting the offer - yet, according to Beckett's inside source, he barely batted an eye before refusing.

It gets harder when Castle's former girlfriend turns up as the bride in the case of a murdered bridesmaid, and Beckett is shocked by her own reaction. Not just that she's jealous - yes, that, but not _just_ that - she also sees how rattled Castle is by seeing his ex again, and Beckett finds, uncomfortably, that his evident pain affects her too. She hurts for him, and that realization spooks her badly.

It gets harder still when what initially seemed like just another murder unexpectedly brings Beckett's mother's case back into the spotlight, and Castle unhesitatingly lays out a hundred grand of his own money to try to catch the killer. When Dick Coonan jams his gun into Castle's ribs, Beckett thinks she might split in two. Despair overwhelms her and doesn't let go: not when Montgomery steps out with his gun held up; not when she's crouched over Coonan's body, her hands drenched in his blood, desperately willing him to live.

He doesn't. And Castle comes back later, more solemn than she has ever seen him, and apologizes, and says he's going to stop shadowing her. Guilt and pain suffuse his face, and her gut twists with dismay; she only barely manages to keep herself from reaching out to grab his hand. They don't do that. They don't touch, at the precinct.

So she doesn't reach for him, but she does tell him, quietly and firmly, that she still wants him around. She knows he's hearing the subtext loud and clear. The very idea that he might step out of her life - both parts of her life - over this, of all things, is inconceivable. She can't bear it, even though she still can't admit to why.

They go home separately after eating at her desk. They don't meet up that night, or the next night. Emotions are too raw. Beckett goes home both nights and drinks just enough vodka to bring her deep, dreamless, unsatisfying sleep.

But her attempts to keep up the pretense - to keep the strangers game separate in her mind from their daytime roles - go from difficult to almost absurd when a newspaper refers to her and Castle as "rumored to be romantically involved." After that case is wrapped up, after her disastrous farce of a date with a firefighter, she finds herself at Remy's with Castle for what she belatedly realizes would be considered a date under most normal circumstances. She nearly panics when that thought hits her; she clings determinedly to the charade that they're just coworkers, nothing more. She keeps the conversation on casework, and, when that peters out, on Alexis; and when even that fails, she chokes out a hasty "Gotta go. Night, Castle," and once again flees.

The next day is a paperwork day. Castle shows up in the morning as usual, hangs around fidgeting and complaining of boredom until even Ryan is telling him to shut up, and then leaves. But not before casually dropping a business card on Beckett's desk while no one else is looking. She whisks it out of sight. It shows the address and logo of another seedy little bar, this one way off on the Upper East Side. She doesn't know the place, but she's sure that Castle has already scouted out the area and found some kind of hotel nearby.

She's twitchy the rest of the day, like a junkie awaiting a fix. When end of shift arrives, she can hardly move fast enough, shutting down her computer and rapping out a quick goodbye to the boys before she's out the door.

When Castle - no, _Rick_ \- slides into her body a short while later, she feels a sickening mix of relief, shame, and apprehension. But the pure delicious pleasure he gives her overcomes it all and she moves with him eagerly, avidly until they both find their release.

They manage to maintain the act for a few more weeks. Beckett is queasy with anxiety as it becomes harder and harder to ignore how the pretense is crumbling out from under them. She sees the looks Castle gives her while they're working, the way he keeps opening his mouth as if to speak but then quickly stopping himself. She sees it all and knows that this can't go on forever - sooner or later something will have to give - but she still just can't face it.

And then there's a serial killer calling the precinct, asking for Detective Heat, taunting Beckett. The FBI is involved and Castle is grim-faced with guilt, while Beckett is tense with fury because she is _not_ Nikki Heat, damn it. How dare he? She has got to catch this asshole before he kills anyone else in her name that isn't her name.

She channels her anger, again, into cool hard efficiency, so that when Agent Shaw asks "So how long have you two been sleeping together?" her immediate response is entirely believable. She denies, and Castle corroborates, and Shaw buys it. Incredible.

That evening Castle shows up at her door - at her _home_ \- and her heart leaps into her throat. Letting him into her apartment feels like the most dangerous thing she has ever done.

There are rules to the game - she keeps reminding herself of the rules - she _needs_ the rules - but he doesn't seem to be here to break them. He brings her wine; he nudges her into the familiar, comfortable banter that they've always hidden behind. When he declares that he isn't going to leave her alone, she feels faint with nervousness, but she covers it up with bravado.

"If I see that doorknob turn, I will have you know, Mr. Castle, that I sleep with a gun."

He smiles softly. "Understood." And he's kicking off his shoes, lifting his legs onto the sofa as she retreats.

She goes into her bedroom, changes into pajamas, and sits in bed, tense, listening, wondering. What will he do? What does she want him to do?

The silence drags on so long that her eyelids grow heavy, and at last she slides down under the covers and falls asleep.

She wakes up in the morning feeling refreshed, but unsettled. She doesn't like how she feels about the fact that Castle respected the rules of the game - that he never turned her doorknob. She thinks he probably left sometime in the night, and she should feel relieved, not disappointed.

But when she emerges cautiously from her room, to her amazement, there he is, cooking pancakes.

Then he opens the door and finds the corpse they've been looking for, and Beckett is ashamed to realize that her very first thought is not _Oh no, the poor woman,_ nor even _Oh good, a break in the case_ , but rather _Oh shit, everyone will know that Castle slept over_.

And of course they do, but she gets through it. She has just enough time to throw on some clothes and brush her hair, so at least she doesn't have to worry about the entire FBI and NYPD seeing her in pajamas. Not much can be done about Castle's rumpled slept-in-my-clothes appearance, though.

Shaw, of course, is too professional to ask, and when Ryan and Esposito realize that needling Beckett is a dangerous proposition, they turn to Castle instead. She overhears him saying "There's nothing going on with Beckett and me, no more than there was yesterday," and she purses her lips to hold back a flare of amusement, because technically it's the absolute truth. Castle is a writer, after all, and he chose his words carefully.

So the boys are thrown off the trail, the Feds don't care, and the murder investigation can continue. The day flies by.

Now Beckett is lying bruised and battered in her bathtub, with the smell of smoke in her nose and the explosion's aftereffects leaving her disoriented and half-deaf. Dimly, above the ringing in her ears and the crackling of the fire, she hears Castle calling her name. Her first name; in the midst of this madness, she can't help focusing in on that. He's calling "Kate!" and his voice is cracking with desperation, with anguish.

She tries to call his name back, but drawing in the breath sends her into a coughing fit. It works equally well to alert him to her location, though. She drags her head above the rim of the tub just in time to see him stumble through the wreckage and find her.

"Kate! You're alive." He rushes over, shoving rubble out of the way. "Whoa, and you're naked."

"Castle, turn around," she snaps. He huffs in disbelief.

"Really?" he demands, and she feels her heart flutter painfully in her chest, because it's the closest either of them has ever come to acknowledging ... the thing ... and she isn't sure if she's maybe going to freak out about that later.

But he's right; this is no time for modesty; he has seen her naked dozens of times. She pulls herself upright, gripping the edge of the tub, and carefully stands.

"Hand me a towel."

"Towels are on fire," he reports, quickly shrugging out of his jacket. "Here, take this."

He wraps his jacket around her and helps her out of the tub, so gently, so sweetly. It would tear at her heart, if she were allowing herself to think about it, but she focuses on walking instead. The floor is strewn with rubble and she's barefoot. It could almost be a metaphor, if it weren't the literal ruins of her home.

Luckily, a pair of boots that she left beside the front door is somehow intact, and she shoves her feet into them before Castle urges her onward, anxious.

"The building could collapse," he frets, and hustles her out the front door just as the fire trucks come screaming around the corner.

Beckett knows, dimly, that she's spiraling out of control. Agent Shaw kicks her off the case, and a cold knot is weighing down her belly, because she knows that the moment she lets herself stop moving, the moment she doesn't have the case to focus on, she's going to have to think about the fact that almost everything she owned in life is gone.

Montgomery tells her to go home, and she almost snaps; she reminds him that she doesn't have a home. The voice from behind her is warm, deep, offering her comfort if only she would take it. If only she could.

"It's the safest place in the city," says Castle, and the lump in her stomach twists painfully; she can hardly even look at him. But he and Montgomery insist, and she knows she's only putting up a token resistance anyway.

She goes with Castle. She goes. She goes to his loft, and accepts hugs and words of welcome from his mother and daughter, and sits with them over hot cocoa.

Martha and Alexis eventually head off to bed, and Beckett is left alone with Castle. For the second time in days they'll be sleeping under the same roof, and again it feels very dangerous. Talking with him, she feels like she's swimming at the surface of a deep, shark-infested ocean.

He's being careful of her now. He isn't giving her those intent looks that have been on his face more and more lately. He teases gently, and she can roll her eyes, and it's almost the same as it always has been between them. Almost.

She puts her mug down and bids him goodnight.

She goes upstairs to the guest room, washes up, and gets into the bed; she sits up against the headboard, opening a book that she borrowed from Castle's extensive collection. But her mind is too full of buzzing thoughts, both the ones she needs to consider and the ones she's trying to ignore. She can't concentrate on the book at all. After rereading the same paragraph several times without any success, she gives up, puts the book down, turns off the light. She lies down on the unfamiliar bed and closes her eyes.

Sleep won't come. Her mind is still too busy; the strain of avoiding thinking about her destroyed home and everything else is too great. She tosses and turns for a while before sitting up again, turning the light back on. Huffing in frustration, she gets out of bed. Maybe a cup of tea will help.

The loft is mostly in darkness, but the kitchen light is on. She hesitates halfway down the stairs, almost ready to turn around and go back; but she tells herself that it could be one of the redheads. She knows, now, that she's lying to herself. She lets herself do it. She goes down the stairs.

Castle is standing in the kitchen, staring at nothing. A bottle of vodka and a single empty glass sit on the countertop in front of him. He looks up at her approach.

She slides onto a stool, biting her lip.

He says nothing, just reaches for another glass, pours a small measure of liquid into it, pushes it across the kitchen island.

She picks it up and takes a sip. The alcohol burns pleasantly on the way down and the phrase 'liquid courage' floats through her mind.

She looks up at Castle, and he smiles slightly, his eyes hooded. She can't read his expression.

"Come here often?" he says softly, his tone deliberately light.

She feels the corners of her mouth twitch a little bit with amusement as she realizes slowly that of all the corny pickup lines there are, this is one he never used in all their many rounds of the strangers game.

Besides, as so often happens with Castle, there's a deeper meaning hidden behind the joke. She sees that now, more clearly than ever.

She takes another sip of the vodka, puts the glass down. She slides off the stool and moves around the island. Castle watches her with surprise blooming in his eyes.

She walks up to him and doesn't pause. She reaches up and pulls his head down, brings his mouth to hers.

It's completely against the rules, but she can't find the energy to care.

He wraps his arms around her and kisses her fiercely, passionately. Her whole body is pressed against his but it's still not enough, not enough. She pushes him backward and across the room, toward the door that leads to his bedroom. She's sucking on his tongue and he's running his hands up and down her back, down farther and suddenly he grabs her ass and hauls her up, her legs coming up automatically to wrap around his waist, and he staggers quickly to the bedroom, carrying her, their mouths still fused together.

The curtains are drawn and all the lights are off in Castle's bedroom, so Beckett can barely see him in the dark, but she doesn't need to. She knows the contours of his body by heart, as he knows hers. They strip each other's clothes off and fall onto the bed, touching, kissing. The stubble on his chin rasps against her chest and she shudders, clutching his head as he takes one nipple into his mouth.

Her hands wander voraciously across his body, and suddenly he rolls away. She hears the sound of a drawer opening and the crinkle of the condom wrapper. She reaches for him, finds his fingers, takes the condom from him. Blindly in the dark she pushes him onto his back and straddles his hips.

As they rock together he caresses her body so gently, more tenderly than he has ever done before, and in the darkness she sees the gleam of his eyes full of emotion. It makes her gasp aloud and she leans down, her mouth seeking in the dark, finding his jaw, tracking a trail up to his mouth and sealing her lips against his before any dangerous words can find their way out.

He goes on stroking her slowly, sweetly, as she moves over him, and her climax rolls over her in irresistible waves, slow and powerful.

Afterward she rolls away, turning her back to him, staring into the darkness as the sweat cools on her skin.

But he moves toward her, she feels the heat of his body behind hers, and his voice slips into her ear, full of feeling.

"You almost died," he gets out, anguished, and she freezes. It's against the rules. Breaking character, blending the game with reality.

Fear surges through her, like she's falling off a cliff. Her lungs feel like lead; she struggles to take in a breath. She squeezes her eyes shut in the dark and feels a couple of hot tears leak out.

He shifts even closer, and his arm slides around her waist, pulling her back against him. The broad solidity of his chest is shockingly reassuring. "You almost died," he repeats, his voice trembling.

"Castle," she whispers, and that's against the rules too, but she's cracking inside.

She turns in his arms and burrows her face into his chest. He presses her close and she knows he can feel her tears dampening his skin.

"Don't go," he implores quietly. She doesn't know how to answer that. She doesn't know what to do. She lies there breathing him in, her body quivering as the tears flow.

They break another rule. They fall asleep together.

Beckett wakes some indeterminate time later and finds herself still snuggled up with Castle, now curled against his side, his arm around her shoulders. It's still dark, so she can't have been asleep for too long.

Carefully, she lifts up onto an elbow. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark enough that she can make out the outline of Castle's profile, relaxed in sleep. A flop of hair over his forehead tempts her fingers, but she leaves it alone.

She tries to slide smoothly out from his embrace, but he wakes anyway and stares fuzzily at her. Her chest tightens and she gets up too quickly; she almost topples over when her achy legs take her weight. She catches herself and heads for the bathroom.

A small nightlight guides her to the right door, and provides enough illumination once she's inside that she doesn't have to turn on the overhead light. She uses the toilet, washes her hands, splashes water on her face, and dries off with a small hand-towel hanging beside the sink. When she brings it up to her face, the towel smells like Castle and her breath stops briefly, a painful chill of apprehension running through her whole body.

She steps back out of the bathroom and hesitates, seeing him sitting up on the bed, waiting for her.

When she moves to pick up her clothes from the floor, he reaches over, his broad hand closing around her upper arm, gently, but insistently. "Don't go," he whispers again, as if no time had passed at all.

Goosebumps rise across her arms and shoulders. He pulls her back onto the bed; he lies down and brings her with him. She goes along - she doesn't know why; she still feels the urge to pull away, but somehow she can't make herself act on it.

He gathers her in against him, running his hands over her body, and even though they're both still naked, it isn't a sexual touch. It's reassurance, like he needs to convince himself again and again and again that she's really here. That she's okay.

She should resist - she thinks she wants to resist - get up, pull away from this dangerous, rule-breaking touch - but she doesn't. She rests her hand on his chest, her head on the pillow beside his, and lets him pet her, comfort himself.

"Your family," she protests weakly, after a few minutes. She's almost too wrung out to find the words for what she means, but she trusts Castle to understand. She means, if she stays here all night with him, then Martha and Alexis will find out in the morning.

"I don't care," he says firmly. He presses her onto her back and looms over her in the dim room, kisses her mouth gently, deliberately. "I don't care." Another kiss. Another, and she turns her head away, the tears starting up again.

"Kate," he whispers, not attempting to make her turn back and face him. "I know I can't tell you what to do - you can go back to the guest room if you want - but ... aren't you tired of pretending?"

She gasps, shivers, sucks in another painful breath. The honesty hurts. It's breaking down her walls, destroying her ability to compartmentalize.

"Because I am," he goes on, and she knows that he _wants_ to bring those barriers down, no matter how much it hurts. "I'm tired of pretending that I'm not in love with you."

Her whole body goes still. Her stomach feels like it has dropped through the center of the earth. Her mouth is dry, her breathing shallow.

She turns her face back to him, hesitantly. His eyes are shadowed in the dim light of the room, but she can see the sincerity in his face.

"I love you, Kate," he says again. "I don't want to hide it any more, not after I almost lost you yesterday."

A few more tears seep out, and she has to push words past her trembling lips. "Castle, I'm such a mess," she whispers bleakly.

But he just smiles, a little sadly, and brushes his lips across hers again. "You're the most extraordinary mess I've ever known," he answers quietly.

Her breath catches again and she realizes in a flash that of all people, Castle is in the best position to know just exactly how screwed up she is. And yet ... he loves her.

The walls of her home have come down; how can there be any more barriers, any more pretense, when they've broken almost all of the rules tonight? Except the one about never leaving the room together, she thinks irrelevantly. If she stays, like he wants her to, they could break that rule in the morning.

She closes her eyes and shudders briefly, imagining that she can hear and feel the rest of it toppling, crumbling to dust around her. All of her careful safeguards, her emotional protection: all shattering.

Slowly she reopens her eyes and finally allows herself to see the truth in Castle's face, his gentle smile.

"I love you too," she whispers through dry, unsteady lips. Her heart lifts at the way the words spread joy across his face like the rising of the sun.

He leans down and this time she meets his kiss, whimpering softly at the earnest touch of his tongue. She lifts her arms around his neck and pulls him over her, and, for the second time tonight - the second time ever - they make love.

* * *

"Why did you go along with it for so long?" Beckett finally gets up the courage to ask, a few days later - after they've caught the killer, endured extensive ribbing from the team over their newfound relationship ("About damn time" was all Montgomery said, but Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie were more loquacious), and been given several days off to recuperate from all the trauma. They're lying in Castle's bed again, relaxing; she can feel another argument about where she should live brewing, but she can't hold this question back any more. "Why did you keep pretending?"

"Mmm," he hums thoughtfully, his fingertips drawing little patterns on her bare shoulder. "At first I thought it was just for fun, but at some point I realized that we were building trust."

"Oh," she breathes, surprised, because it's true and she never saw it that way.

"Then I fucked it all up and broke your trust," he goes on, his arm tightening reflexively around her, "and when you took me back I knew I had to do whatever it took to earn it again."

She shifts in closer, dropping a tiny kiss on the closest bit of his chest. "And then?"

Without even looking, she knows he's smiling against the top of her head. "And then I was just in so deep there was no way out. I knew you weren't ready, so if I stopped pretending, I'd lose you. And that wasn't an option."

A pleasant shiver runs through her. She lifts her head to look into his eyes again.

"Thank you for waiting for me," she murmurs, nearly a whisper. She kisses his chest again and then shifts upward to find his mouth.

"Always," he breathes against her lips.

* * *

A few years later, shortly after they've gotten back from their honeymoon, Castle has to go off on a week-long book tour. The day before he leaves, Beckett looks over his itinerary and smiles to herself.

The fifth day of the trip is a Saturday, and she's not on call. So on Friday evening as soon as she finishes her shift, she rushes back to the loft, changes her clothes, grabs the small travel bag that she has already packed, and heads to the airport.

She lands in Denver just past dinnertime, takes a taxi to the hotel, goes directly to the bar. She orders vodka with a twist, making sure to sit where she's visible to anyone walking through the lobby on the way to the elevators.

She's taking a gamble - what if he's already in the room for the night? what if he doesn't look toward the bar? - but, as she suspected, it pays off. He strolls past about ten minutes later, pauses, does a double-take, then backtracks and saunters on into the bar.

He takes a stool a few down from her, and signals the bartender.

"Another one for the lady, and I'll have the same."

"Thanks," she murmurs, giving him a sideways smile, flexing her fingers around her glass so that her wedding ring is easily visible.

"My pleasure," he grins back, all cool composure and charm. "You in for the publishing conference? Great keynote speech yesterday."

"No, just passing through," she replies, angling her body toward him, crossing her legs slowly. "Got a flight to L.A. first thing in the morning. Client meetings."

"Ah," he nods. "Meetings make the world go 'round, or so they'd like us to believe."

She chuckles softly, nodding at the dumb joke. "So publishing, eh? What are you, some kind of big-shot writer?"

"I do okay," he shrugs negligently, and they drink in silence for a few moments.

"Denver sure is pretty this time of year, isn't it?" he puts in at last.

"It really is," she agrees. "The mountains are just lovely."

"Good skiing too," he nods. "Didn't get a chance to hit the slopes this time around. Maybe next time."

"There's always so much to do," she says, smiling.

He leans toward her. "Listen," he says more seriously, his smile dropping away, "I feel like I need to be honest with you."

"Oh?" She straightens her spine and raises her eyebrows. "How so?"

"Well, you seem really nice and everything," he goes on, "but I have to tell you, I'm completely loyal to my wife."

"Ahh," she breathes, her chest fluttering with delight even as she keeps playing her role. "That's pretty sweet, actually." Now she leans in a little bit also. "Tell me," she says softly, "if your wife were here right now, what would you say to her?"

His eyes light up at the words, and she sees him fighting to contain his smile. "Oh, I wish she were. I'd tell her how much I've missed her, even though it's only been a few days. I'd tell her how much I love her." He lets a smirk twist his lips and adds, "But mostly I'd just have to say, let's get the hell out of here and get up to the room before I do something indecent right here in this bar."

She laughs out loud at that, genuine and joyful, and he surges forward to claim her mouth, wrapping her in his arms, the sweetness of her laughter mixing with the vodka on their tongues while the bartender blinks in surprise.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little piece. As always, please feel free to use the comment box and tell me what you think._


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